China Strike

by Matt Rees

  “Aw, all right,” she said. “Bill, we’re going to help out Agent Lyons.”

  Todd stopped at the doorway. “We are?”

  “Tom Frisch is dead.” She turned her head to the side and winked.

  Todd picked up on the signal. He turned to Lyons. “Oh, man. That sucks for you, Vinnie.”

  “You’re the one who was supposed to take him out of here.” Lyons had his hands on top of his head. “You’re the reason he got this opportunity to escape.”

  Todd shrugged. “But here I am. He wasn’t in my custody.”

  Kinsella stepped past Todd toward Lyons. “Seriously, Bill, we’ve got to clear this up for Vinnie. Frisch was a stinking mope. It’s a shame we don’t have him for further interrogation. But there’s no reason for an ICE agent to go to jail over that guy’s death.”

  Lyons quivered. “What’re you saying?”

  “Bill’s going to suck this one up for you, Vinnie.”

  “Screw that.” Todd slapped his hand against the door.

  Kinsella raised a finger in warning. “Bill, you’re going to report that Tom Frisch was in your custody this morning when he was killed by a runaway truck.”

  “Why would I write that?”

  “Would you rather explain why you were sitting in this cell like a dipwad?”

  Todd’s features darkened. Kinsella grinned, enjoying that she could tease him as well as torment Lyons.

  “Vinnie, here’s what I need from you,” she said. “I want access to the security log database for Special Agent Roula Haddad. She’ll know how to fix all this without some hump in internal investigations finding electronic fingerprints that might lead them to suspect things aren’t right.”

  “Roula Haddad, okay.” Lyons nodded eagerly.

  “Bill, you agree?”

  Todd shoved his hands into the pockets of his cheap jeans. “Sure. I’ll do it.”

  “Thanks, man,” Lyons said.

  “Don’t thank me.” Todd gestured toward Kinsella.

  “Yeah, thanks, Noelle.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Kinsella and Todd were back at the field office in fifteen minutes. Haddad beckoned to them urgently as they passed her cubicle.

  “Did you hear from Vinnie Lyons?” Kinsella said.

  “It’s taken care of. Our Tom Frisch is officially dead. Bill can write the report. I’ve doctored the detention center entrance logs to show Bill left with Frisch shortly before the Dariens crashed.”

  “Thanks, Roula.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Thank me right now. Because I’ve got a lead for you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Beyond the window of the Delta terminal at Detroit Metro Airport, battered Dariens littered the ramp, crushed against the yellow cabs or overturned by collisions with big tour buses. Verrazzano came up the escalator from the government flight that had brought him from JFK with Jahn and Frisch. He turned toward the rental car desks.

  Frisch came into the concourse behind him. He whistled at the chaos. Jahn shoved him forward. He stumbled against Verrazzano and scowled at the FBI agent.

  “Now you see why we’re willing to work with a traitor like you.” Jahn gave Frisch another poke in the shoulder to get him moving.

  The concourse was jammed with travelers, none of whom had any prospect of traveling anywhere. Commercial flights were grounded across the country. The people inside the terminal were stuck, hoping that the skies would be opened soon enough to save them a night in a Detroit hotel or on a bench in the airport. Every child appeared to be bawling and crying. Every couple bickered. Everyone was scared, and a shrill tone of panic echoed around the high, sweeping ceiling. Verrazzano’s group picked their way through the crowd. Frisch edged slowly to the side of the bustle. Verrazzano took hold of his arm.

  Frisch shook him off. “I’ve been in solitary for six months. All these people are freaking me out, is all. So give me a break and let’s go around the side here.”

  Jahn tapped Verrazzano’s shoulder. She held up the screen of her phone to show an FBI alert. “Domestic flights got shut down right after the crash. International flights just got grounded too.”

  “Makes sense. If they can get inside the computer in a car,” Frisch said, “they can hack a plane and bring it down, right?” He spoke loudly enough that the panicked vacationers and business travelers around him glared, angered and horrified.

  “Let’s move,” Verrazzano said.

  Frisch looked up at the welcoming smile of the Mexican farmer in the logo of the Juan Valdez Café. “I haven’t had a decent cup of java in six months. Get me some joe right here. You’ll see a totally different guy. I’ve got a smile like Julia Roberts.”

  “We’ve got to see that. I could use a cup anyway.” Verrazzano went toward the café’s counter. He called to Jahn, “Watch him.”

  “What do you think she’s going to do?” Frisch said. “Give me a ticket to Hawaii and send me on my way? The flights are all grounded. Just get me the coffee.”

  “The flights are grounded?” A man in a gray suit turned toward Frisch. “I just spoke to a desk agent over there. She said we might be able to take off with a delay of only a few hours.”

  Frisch shook his head. “They just don’t want you to panic, man. No one’s going anywhere. What part of ‘terror alert’ do you not understand?”

  Jahn yanked at Frisch’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

  The man in the suit didn’t question Frisch’s authority or knowledge. Instead, he started to spread the news about the grounding of all the flights. The murmur that circulated through the crowd rose in volume and became shrill.

  Verrazzano dropped a few balled-up dollars on the counter at Juan Valdez. They had been in his pocket for days. He generally only ate at the cafeteria in the ICE field office. He didn’t spend money on entertainment. He’d been unknowingly saving up to buy a caffeine jolt for the worst man in the world.

  “Three coffees.” He glanced up at the TV screen behind the counter. The news anchor’s baritone guided viewers through footage from the Golden Gate. The span of the famous old bridge was choked with car wrecks. The crawl line at the bottom of the screen told him riots had spread to inner cities all over the country. Police had shot looters dead in Atlanta, Houston, and Miami.

  The skinny Indian behind the cash register rubbed his eyes. The whites were discolored to a caramel tone. Overindulgence in the store’s product must have been wrecking his kidneys. He laid Verrazzano’s change on the counter and set to work pouring the coffees with shaky hands. Verrazzano collected his coins and corrected himself. The second-worst man in the world. Wyatt could buy his own coffee.

  “Oh my God.” The woman at the head of the next line gawked at the television screen above the counter. Verrazzano followed her glance. The news channel had cut away from San Francisco. Instead, it showed the traffic circle outside Buckingham Palace, where black taxis and passenger cars were tangled together. A few seconds later, the image cut to a similar scene around the Arc de Triomphe. In the time it took for the woman’s coffee to arrive, the news showed destruction in Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv. Verrazzano ran his hand over his face. It was everywhere. Each wrecked car on the screen was a signal to him from Colonel Wyatt, a reminder that no one in the world would be safe until Verrazzano and his old commander had their reckoning.

  He stuck his change into the side pocket of his jacket. The pocket was empty. The fake ICE ID he had used to get Frisch out of the detention center in Brooklyn had been in there. Now it was gone. He glanced over at Frisch until he was sure he had caught his eye. Then he turned away.

  The woman picked up her cup and moved off slowly, dazed, cradling the coffee in both hands. She reminded Verrazzano of his sister. She had the same bump halfway down her nose. He watched her walk toward the crowd. He wished he could be with Helen now, eating her brownies and playing with his niece. He would call them as soon as he was back from . . . from wherever he ended up in the next few days.


  The woman with the coffee halted beside Jahn and Frisch. She squinted at the big departures board, looking for news of her flight.

  “Three coffees, sir.” The Indian set a tray down on the counter with Verrazzano’s order.

  Verrazzano had started to turn toward the counter to pick up his tray, when Frisch’s arm snapped out toward the woman with the coffee. Frisch braced his palm under the cup and jerked his hand upward. The cup flew into the air and dropped toward the crowd. The woman yelped in surprise.

  The coffee cup came down on another woman’s head. The scalding liquid blew across her scalp and face. She shrieked. The crowd was suddenly in motion. They were in an airport, already tense because of the clogged terminal and cancelled flights and the fear of terrorism, and now someone was screaming in agony.

  Frisch elbowed Jahn sharply on the nose. He punched her in the ear, kicked her kneecap, and was gone into the roiling crowd.

  Verrazzano tried to follow, but Frisch ducked low. The crowd hid him. Jahn came to her feet. Her nose gushed blood. She wiped at it with the sleeve of her jacket. “I’m okay,” she said.

  The woman with the scalded scalp wasn’t the only one screaming now. The wailing children turned up the volume. Men pushed each other in the melee, guarding their families and yelling in many languages.

  “We’ve got to stop him before he gets out of here.” Jahn moved ahead. The exits were crowded with people trying to escape from whatever the panic was about.

  Verrazzano cut through the crush in the opposite direction to Jahn—toward the security check. She followed him, shouting, “What the hell are you doing? Why would he go that way?”

  A TSA agent stepped toward him at the metal detector. “Sir, the checkpoint is closed. Stay where you are.”

  Verrazzano flipped his wallet to show his ICE identification. The TSA guy blinked at it, but Verrazzano was already gone. The metal detector beeped loudly. He waved his badge again and kept going.

  He charged past a Cajun burger joint and a Mediterranean grill. Verrazzano cut along the shopping concourse. He didn’t see Frisch.

  Jahn came up behind him. “We should be at the exits to the terminal. So he can’t break for the open.”

  “Whatever you expect Frisch to do, he’ll do the opposite.”

  “Well, I expected him to escape, and now he’s done just that. So much for your theory of doing the opposite.”

  He sprinted away, past the luggage shops and food concessions. “Where the hell are you going?” Jahn came after him. At the furthest end of the concourse, Verrazzano halted at an unmarked white doorway. He took out his ICE ID and slipped it through the card reader beside the keypad. The lock clicked and he went inside.

  A guard in a tan uniform looked up from behind a Perspex window. Verrazzano flashed his card. He jerked a finger at Jahn. “She’s with the Bureau.” The guard’s expression became less friendly. He examined Jahn’s identity card. The ICE logo on his sleeve rippled as he rolled his shoulders.

  “Agent Todd?” Verrazzano asked the guard. “From the New York field office?”

  “Down in the motor pool.” The guard directed them to a staircase.

  As they leapt down the stairs, Jahn called to Verrazzano. “Agent Todd? But he’s still in—”

  “Frisch is good at picking pockets.”

  The stairs took them to a recess under the terminal where a row of dark-blue cars were parked. Another uniformed guard sat in a booth at the end of the rank, studying the sports pages. Verrazzano ran toward him. “Guy just took out a vehicle. Tall, long beard.”

  “He sure did.” The guard set aside his newspaper.

  “I need a car too.”

  Verrazzano signed for a set of keys and jumped into a long dark sedan. He pulled away as Jahn dropped into the passenger seat and shut the door.

  “How are we going to catch him?” she said. “We can’t have him pulled over. He’s supposed to be in a jail cell in New York. We’re never going to explain that.”

  Verrazzano thumbed through the screen of his cell phone, even as he took the car toward the security gate out of the terminal area and into the public roadway.

  “What’ve you got?” Jahn asked. “Is there a tracking device in the car he took out of the ICE pool?”

  He smiled at her and held up his phone. A map of Detroit on the screen showed a pulsing dot progressing northeast along the interstate.

  “Frisch?” she asked.

  “Sure. Don’t you recognize him?”

  “What if he stops and switches cars?”

  “We’re not tracking the car. He tried to keep the fake ICE ID when we left the detention center. I figured he’d steal it again, so I doctored it while we were on the plane. There’s a microtransmitter taped to the back of the card.”

  “So he didn’t escape. You let him go just now. You couldn’t have told me? So as maybe I wouldn’t get smacked in the head and have my kneecap near stomped off?”

  “Your knee’s okay. You ran just fine through the terminal.”

  “What if he ditches the ICE ID?”

  Verrazzano pulled onto I-94. “The entire country is in lockdown. If Frisch wants to get around, he’s going to hang onto the ID. Keep an eye on that signal for me.”

  A half hour later, they pulled up outside a house of brown and tan brick with a tall chimney stack and gabled windows south of Cherry Hill Street. At the curb was a beaten-up German midsize car. Verrazzano glanced through the driver’s side window. The housing of the steering column dangled where Frisch had ripped it away to hot-wire the engine when he switched vehicles.

  The house looked like a chunk of Henry Ford’s old Fairlane estate had broken loose and floated across the Rouge River to settle in this wealthy corner of Dearborn. It was the kind of place where a thirties mogul might have set up his secretary so he could come by anytime to give her a session of energetic dictation. It was also, Verrazzano figured, home to whoever owned the Bitcoin wallet to which Colonel Wyatt had sent money from Beijing. He hadn’t trusted Frisch to take them here the way they agreed. But now he’d led them to the place.

  “This isn’t right.”

  Jahn got out of the ICE sedan. “Frisch brought us here.”

  “I mean, it doesn’t feel right.”

  He went to the path across the front lawn. He scanned the dark, leaded windows of the house. The house broadcast the absolute quiet of a hidden presence. The very bricks seemed to hold their breath. “Go around the back, Gina.”

  Jahn cut across the lawn and went around the corner. Verrazzano gave her time to get to the back door. Then he nudged the oak front door. It swung open.

  He went through the hallway and spun into the living room with his weapon before him. He let his back brace against the wall and listened to the silence for its deepest point. That was where he’d find Frisch. Or whoever else was hiding here. The room was empty.

  He returned to the hallway. Jahn was in the kitchen with her Glock ready.

  Verrazzano went to the dining room door. He sensed the cold quiet of death within. He wheeled inside. A man lay on his back on the dining table, arms and legs spread. He stared straight up at the ceiling. His broad, round face and the low bridge of his nose suggested he was East Asian. His hair was bristly, as though it had been shaved not long ago and was being allowed to grow back.

  Except on top. From the center of his brow to the crown of his head, his skull was visible and scarred with gouts of drying blood. Verrazzano went closer. The man had been scalped.

  Jahn spoke from the doorway. “I guess those Bitcoin payments really weren’t innocent. Did Frisch do this?”

  Verrazzano leaned over the corpse. Nothing Wyatt does is ever innocent, he thought, and Wyatt’s behind this, not Frisch. He followed the dead man’s eyes. They stared at the ceiling. A man being scalped would’ve turned his eyes up in his sockets as far as he could, drawn to the source of his pain. But there was a horror that would’ve been even worse for the man on the table, Verrazzano realized, and
his eyes were on that.

  He went quickly out of the room and mounted the stairs. He crossed the landing to the room directly above the dead man. The room he had been looking toward when he died. It was a bedroom, undisturbed by the killer. Nothing in the house had been tossed. Whoever killed the man on the table had gotten what he wanted.

  In the doorway Verrazzano listened. The dog-whistle murmur of electrical gadgets flowed toward him from the nightstands, cell phones and tablets plugged into the outlets. On the dresser, a remote audio speaker burped its barely audible low-battery signal.

  In the far corner, there was an antique cherrywood closet. The quiet around it was deafening. He crossed the room smoothly, threw back the door, and pulled the rack of light floral dresses aside on their hangers. A small woman shrieked and buried herself farther back into the closet. She held her thin arms up over her head and pulled her knees into her chest, kicking out feebly at Verrazzano.

  The things we can’t live with don’t actually kill us. So, unfortunately, we all live with things we can’t live with, and each time we confront them we sense the death that dwells within us. For Verrazzano, the sight of a woman cowering before him, expecting him to kill her, took him back to that stairwell in Beirut where he had realized that the only source of fear in his world was himself.

  “It’s okay.” He moved his gun behind his leg to put it out of the woman’s sight. He touched her quivering arm. “I’m a federal agent. Ma’am, you can come out of there now.” He called for Jahn.

  A heavy fist shot through the clothing on the hangers. It caught Verrazzano square on the nose. He rocked back onto the bed. Tom Frisch leapt out at him, reaching for the gun in his hand. Verrazzano stretched his arm away. Frisch head-butted him full in the face and buried his teeth in the skin around his eye. Verrazzano yelled. His mouth filled with Frisch’s long beard. He coughed and bit at the chin beneath it. Frisch growled and bit down harder.

  Then Frisch flew away from him, tumbling to the floor. Jahn jumped across Verrazzano’s prone body with the impetus of the punch she’d delivered to Frisch’s head. She wrestled Frisch’s arms behind him, cuffed him, and dropped her weight on her knee between his shoulder blades. When she stood up, she kicked Frisch hard in the ribs. She went to tend to Verrazzano’s eye, but his urgent gesture directed her toward the closet.